Poul Simon Christiansen, frequently referred to as Poul S. Christiansen (20 October 1855, Rolfsted, Funen – 14 November 1933, Copenhagen) was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 painter who developed a Colourist

Colourist painting

Colourist painting is characterised by the use of intense colour, which becomes the dominant feature of the resultant work of art, more important than its other qualities. This tendency in painting was foreshadowed by French Impressionism in the late 19th century, and came to prominence in the work...

 style under Kristian Zahrtmann

Kristian Zahrtmann

Peder Henrik Kristian Zahrtmann, known as Kristian Zahrtmann, was a Danish painter. He was a part of the Danish artistic generation in the late 19th century, along with Peder Severin Krøyer and Theodor Esbern Philipsen, who broke away from both the strictures of traditional Academicism and the...

 and as a result of his appreciation of the works of Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...

 and Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

. He painted landscapes and religious works, many of which became popular as reproductions.

Biography

Trained by his father as a windmill builder, he studied art at Zahrtmann's Artists Studio School

Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler

Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler was a Danish art school established in Copenhagen in 1882 as a protest against the policies of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and to provide an alternative to its educational program...

 (1885–1890). He travelled to Italy on several occasions and stayed with Zahrtmann in Civita d'Antino

Civita d'Antino

Civita d'Antino is a comune and town in the province of L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy.-History:Antinum, a city of the Marsians, was situated on a lofty hill in the upper valley of the Liri river , about 25 km from Sora and 10 km from the Lake Fucinus, from which it...

. Despite his own rather Grudvigian approach, he was considered by the Funen Painters

Funen Painters

The Funen Painters or Fynboerne were a loose group of Danish artists who formed an art colony on the island of Funen at the very beginning of the 20th century. They were strongly influenced by Kristian Zahrtmann who taught at the Artists Studio School in Copenhagen from 1885 to 1908...

 to be one of their own when they exhibited his works at the Faaborg Museum.

Christiansen met considerable opposition and it was only with Zahrtmann's support that he was able to exhibit at Den frie Udstilling in 1895. However, he was not widely recognized until his works were exhibited retrospectively in 1910. He rather Grundvigian background led him to associate with the younger but more mature artists Joakim and Niels Skovgaard and with his old school friend Niels Larsen Stevns.

With his dedicated concern for detail and a feel for dramatic effect, Christiansen created monumental works with strong bright colours. Many of his works are drawn from the Bible, mythology, history and from Dante's Divine Comedy. His Dante pictures, inspired by Giotto and Bernardino Luini

Bernardino Luini

Bernardino Luini was a North Italian painter from Leonardo's circle. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described to have taken "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend". Consequently many of his works were...

, reveal his Expressionistic

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

 use of colour, perhaps also influenced by his appreciation of paintings by Gauguin and Van Gogh which were exhibited in Copenhagen in 1893. His large classical paintings of Danish landscapes are comparable to those of P. C. Skovgaard

P. C. Skovgaard

Peter Christian Thamsen Skovgaard , , Danish national romantic landscape painter, was born near Ringsted to farmer Tham Masmann Skovgaard and his wife Cathrine Elisabeth. He is one of the main figures associated with the Golden Age of Danish Painting...

.

Among his most notable paintings are Dante og Beatrice i paradiset (1893) and Knud den Store ved Havet (1908). From 1895, he was a member of Den Frie Udstilling and in 1923 was awarded the Thorvaldsen Medal

Thorvaldsen Medal

The Thorvaldsen Medal is awarded annually with few exceptions to a varying number of recipients by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and is its highest destinction within the visual arts...

.

Selected works

Among Christiansen's most notable works are:

• Dante og Beatrice i paradiset (1893)
• Dante og Vergil ved helvedes port (1894)
• Kristi Opstandelse (1897)
• Englerne forkynder Kristi fødsel for hyrderne (altarpiece, 1897)
• Knud den store ved havet (1900)
• Landevej ved Karise (1907)
• Varm sommerdag i Tibirke Bakker (1910)
• Cività d'Antino i Abruzzerne (1911)
• Skovinteriør, Dyrnæs (1922)
• De kloge og de ukloge jomfruer (1924)